Summary of the 2012 Hacks (WIP)
Document written by VoxelizedBits, AKA Dynabroth. Feel free to join the Discord for updates on this topic.
If you know anything or would like to contact/submit a tip, see my links above, or email Dynabroth at gmail
Document last updated 4/13/2025 (v3)
Special thanks to RavingRevolver, Fededoesstuff, NOTBlocked, furquinn, Brent, Matt, ClientSearch users, Dynabroth users, Zoilu, Rogeroo, Jayden, Ellernate, DaveDog, TheGamer101, Merely, LMW, & Sindexmon for extra findings/resources on this video and document.
13 years ago, the 2012 April Fools Hack took place on Roblox. This incident was a breach of the Roblox admin panel, which caused a lot of chaos. Many believe it was Ellernate, iTrapped, and Caleb244 who did this exploit. However, this is misinformation. There was actually two Roblox hacks in 2012, and they did a separate one in May. They didn't actually do the April Fools Hack. In this thread I'll give some brief explanations on both hacks, based on my research from the past 6 months, and explain what really happened on 4/1. Please note, this document is currently a very brief summary and I plan on expanding more onto this page as time goes on. Currently, this is just a quick directory for you to link others as an alternative wiki page as apposed to Fandom's, which I'm working on fixing in the future.
On May 1st, the user Ellernate created an account on test.roblox.com using the same username as an admin on Roblox. This allowed him to use an extension, likely a cookie editor, to obtain the cookie of this account and apply it onto the main site, allowing access to the admin panel. It’s possible that iTrapped suggested the idea of using cookies which led to this bug being discovered. Originally planning to report it, Ellernate abused the bug by handing out items, and messing with users’ items he deemed to be scammers. The bug would later spread around in groups, originally probably known by Twister & Ellernate, and Johnathan777 (Jayden). Ellernate would be banned afterwards on May 2nd, of which Ellernate then gave access to Isaac Hymer (iTrapped) who began to heavily abuse the method. Around May 5th Roblox would register the Simulping domain to circumvent the repeated abuses of the admin panel exploits that were being discovered, and terminated most of the users involved.
Contrary to popular belief, the users Ellernate, Caleb244, and iTrapped were not involved in the April Fools hack of 2012. Instead, they were involved with this exploit they discovered in Late April/early May. The original April Fools perpetrators were an entirely different group.
History
On May 3rd, a video spread around likely containing the bug that was discovered, and footage of the admin panel.
Who exactly recorded the video is unknown, however, the user Ellissar, an admin, was shown to be compromised via this hack in the video. After Ellernate shared the method after May 2nd, it’s up in the air who could’ve made this video, as the exploit was being abused by a couple people now.
One suspect of the video recording could be Raze, AKA smartjake999, although contact with him is difficult.
Around May 03, 2012 9:06 PM EST, smartjake999 using his alt devon6710 posted on the forums with a link saying “admin panel vidddd”.
Link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=YNDD7dBqGaU
The video is simply unavailable, and archives in all forms don’t exist.
At 9:13 PM, not very long after, the video was made private according to replies. The original upload date of the video is unknown, so it’s possible it was up for some time before this.
It’s unknown if this was the infamous video, or a different one/similar one, and contents of this video are scarce to none. But, with context clues, we can get an idea that it may have shown the bug in question. It’s assumed that the exploit had gotten out at this point and was being shared via this video. The extension allowing cookie editing may have been shown in the video too, as multiple users in replies to the post were asking “what’s it called?” which may be assumed to be in question to what the extension was called. This is just speculation. We can also assume it might’ve been showing the method as one user in replies stated “can I try?”
One user in replies said “<3yetwisty” which may imply it was a video made by Twister. Another user, moenoe, also stated it was the user “Ellissar” doing it. Smartjake seemingly said it wasn’t.
The user Ellissar was an admin. It’s possible that this means this was one of the accounts that the cookie swap bug was utilized on. Assuming this is an admin panel video, it’s possible this showed footage of the same bug, but using this account, which is why one user stated it was footage Ellissar took, only for smartjake to de-confirm this. This is only speculation. With smartjake de-confirming it it means he knows what’s happening in the video, either it’s a video he took, or he knows the account in the video was compromised.
Another post by TwoBoo was posted on May 3rd, 10:02 PM, soon after, mentioning the admin panel “looks rlly cool but complicated” when users asked how he viewed it, he did not reply. It’s not known if he followed the same exploit or if he only saw the video of it.
In the same thread, when asked how you could get into the panel, Base1567 claimed there was a YouTube video which was privatized.
User GPR3 also claims to have seen the admin panel. It’s unknown if they mean the video, or if they saw it by other means.
When asked if the video contained a tutorial on the exploit, TwoBoo once again ignored the question.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR9B4O8ekks
On June 1st, 2012, around 6:39 PM EST, Ellernate on his alt Ellernatealt asked if he should post a video of Roblox’s admin panel, and stated it was 30 minutes long on YouTube. It’s unknown if the video was already on YouTube and he was simply asking if he should share it on the forums or not.
At 6:55 PM, Ellernate posted a link to another post that probably contained a link to the video. The post is taken down now.
http://www.roblox.com/Forum/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=69065900
On the same day, 7:09 PM, user Obcc33 stated they saw the link “www.roblox.com/Fourm/Admin/default.aspx” in Ellernate’s video.
When a user asked for the link, user L8T stated they would not share it. This means they also viewed this video.
At 9:48 PM EST, Merely actually tweets about the video, and posts a link to the video. He states at 2:17, credit card info can be seen but is likely not entirely shown in the video.
Based on this tweet we can determine the video link to be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR9B4O8ekks
It’s also unknown if the screenshot he took was from his own copy of the video in 2014, or if it was a screenshot taken of the video back when it was first up. It’s possible he could be a lead.
Analysis of Four Minute Cut
IM WORKING ON IT!!!!!
Feel free to have this reconstruction of the shoutbox in the meantime, in image form, and, you can visit THIS PAGE for an attempt at a remake of the image in HTML.
